Friday, January 31, 2014

Garden Plan- Side of House

Here is our plans for the 2014 garden bed on the side of the house. Like the others this one is an in ground bed. The edging we used was broken up stone we recycled from a flower bed that had been around one of our light poles. Here is how it looked last year when things were just starting to grown. We didn't think to get a pic when everyone was looking lush and full, but this will give you an idea of the size and such.

First up is the end closest to the back. We planted cucumber and though they are small here they certainly grew!! In fact, they outgrew our little red trellis and clung to the window screen (thus you notice that for 2014 they are moving to the back where we will use a much taller system).

This picture is the opposite end of the house where we planted tomatoes and marigolds (and yes, we started them with the puny cages but built better systems later in the season).

What you don't see is the middle part where we had peppers planted. It is a long though narrow space, but we can't really build it out because there is the driveway and PB did ask that we leave enough grass for him to drive the mower down it. So it is exactly that wide.

Here is our plan for this coming year (once again sorry for the pic quality- they were taken on the cell phone. I know you can do it straight from the phone, but I haven't figured that out yet- eventually the quality will get better).

Since the picture doesn't look like much (and is probably a little confusing) here is the key:

Yellow circle- Pineapple Tomato

Dark green circle- Bell Pepper

Pink circle- Potato Leaf Type Tomato

Light green circle- Banana Pepper

Red circle- Mexibel Pepper

Purple circle- 1884 Tomato

Yellow/Orange Hexagon - Marigold

Dark Green Diagonal Stripe- Mixed Leaf Lettuce Blend

Light Green Bar- Chives (or something similar to fill in)

Maroon Diagonal Stripe- Red Lettuce

We think these will work together. The only worries we have is that last year we planted tomatoes in the end where the pineapple tomatoes are going this year. Hopefully we won't have any diseases since we had no problems last year. We also planted bell and banana peppers where the Mexibel and banana peppers are so once again crossed fingers all went well last year so hopefully no problems this next year.

Last year we didn't have much time for fill in crops so it was mostly tomatoes (which did well), pepper plants (which also did well), cucumbers (they always do well) and marigolds with some blank spots in between. This year, as you can see, we plan to have a few things that harvest quickly and we can succession sow and will hopefully fill in the spots.We may plant some quick growing crops like radish, spinach, etc. in between the tomatoes and peppers while they grown or some sort of herb or flower here and there to make it prettier.

What do you think of our plans? Would you recommend changing any of it up or believe anything won't grow well together?